The Colors of Infamy

by Albert Cossery

  “You are very kind; I don’t deserve such praise,” answered Suleyman, not taking his eyes off Nimr. “May I ask what Professor Nimr teaches? If I’m not prying . . .”

  “Not at all. I’m pleased to inform you that Professor Nimr teaches sociology. Right now, however, he is taking a leave of absence because of a broken heart.”

  “Sociology you say? I’ve heard of it. What exactly is this

  science?”

  “Sociology is the science of survival in society,” Karamallah answered. “Professor Nimr teaches young boys how to get by in life.”

  “May Allah protect him! He is a decent man. Ah, to have met someone like him in my youth. I did not have such good fortune.”

  “On the contrary, I find that you have had a great deal of good fortune,” Karamallah said sententiously.

  “Why do you say that?” asked Suleyman, taken aback by this slightly after-the-fact prediction.

  “Because none of his students made a fortune. That’s why I think that you have been fortunate.”

  “That’s quite sad. There must certainly be a reason for this collective failure.”

  Suleyman was being drawn in more than he would have liked, but the circumstances offered no way out. His interlocutor was leading things and it would have been impolite not to follow him in his rather hasty conclusions. The discussion was just beginning and he had to appear friendly, understanding, and even capable of generosity. To this effect he had brought with him a judiciously calculated sum of money that he intended to place on the table at an opportune moment to set the transaction in motion. In his mind, nothing had changed; just business as usual — only the partners were different.

  “I trust that my friend Nimr will forgive me, but it has always seemed to me that his teachings lacked virulence,” resumed Karamallah. “For his students’ participation in the world’s future he preaches virtue, disdain for money, and modesty. Can you tell me, Excellency, you who know all the pitfalls and difficulties of business — is it possible to be virtuous and become rich? I wanted to see you to ask you this fundamental question that harks back to ancient times.”

  Suleyman looked at his three companions one after the other, hoping for a sign, a clue that would set him on the road to a suitable response. Instead, they seemed amused by his hesitation.

  “Well, it’s more complicated than that,” he said at last, as if he were excusing himself.

  “A sublime response!” cried Karamallah. “Thank you for providing me with it. Of course, I didn’t expect any less from you, Excellency.”

  Karamallah’s wonder was not feigned; he was truly amazed by the persistence and extent of such an inept ideology; he’d never thought it could flourish in sun-drenched lands. So, the old idea dreamed up by illustrious thinkers from cold climes — according to which the world was complicated and absurd — had crossed oceans and borders to come lodge itself in the brain of this abominable crook on the banks of the Nile. This vileness, which consisted in denying the Edenic simplicity of the world, served the interests of the powerful because it justified all the hardships endured by the ignorant masses. Karamallah rebelled against this pernicious disinformation with all the might of his great love of life.

  “Could His Excellency tell us about his personal success?” Ossama asked. “I must confess that, for me, there is something magical about it.”

  “There is no magic at all,” Suleyman assured him. “It is the determination I bring to my work that lies at the heart of my success.”

  “And what a success it is!” declared Karamallah. “Unfortunately it’s been spoiled by that horrid catastrophe. I am so sorry for you. Unless I’m very much mistaken, it was nothing but bad luck. Or is there some other explanation?”

  “I am also extremely sorry, believe me. But nothing can be done to prevent natural disasters. They’re a curse that spares no one. And so I don’t complain.”

  “Natural disasters?” asked Karamallah, surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “May Allah keep you from ever finding yourself in such a situation. Who in the world could have expected an earthquake on such a quiet summer night? Well, the earth quaked, creating an unfathomable mystery around Nasr City. We will never know how or why I was made the victim of nature’s whim.”

  “An earthquake? Where?” asked Nimr worriedly, taking off his glasses in order to perceive the event more clearly.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” Karamallah advised. “We escaped this earthquake — it didn’t do us the honor of coming through our neighborhood. I find that it lacked tact in respect to us.”

  Karamallah’s pleasant little speech seemed full of innuendo to Suleyman, like a clever refutation of the lovely tale he had just told.

  “What? You didn’t know about it?” he asked, as if he were completely stunned by his companions’ amazing ignorance of such a terrifying bit of news. “True, Nasr City is far enough away that one doesn’t always know what goes on there. And then, the government asked the newspapers not to reveal the incident so the people wouldn’t find out about it. But I thought men of your education must have heard about the disaster in one of those cynical intellectual circles always on the lookout for scandal.”

  “No,” said Karamallah. “As you can see, even people with our education were not aware of it. Yet you have warmed our hearts. My friends and I are happy to learn that the true cause of the building’s collapse was a natural disaster and had nothing to do with faulty construction materials. The martyrs sacrificed beneath the ruins have only cantankerous nature to blame.”

  “On my honor, it’s the plain truth,” Suleyman assured them. “In fact it was confirmed by two experts I brought in from abroad to rule out any accusation of fraud. They examined every piece of rubble, analyzed the air around the site, and concluded that it had indeed been an earthquake. Those scientists cost enough for me to set great store by their conclusion.”

  “I’ve noticed,” said Ossama, “that earthquakes always occur in the poorest regions of the world. One has to wonder if nature doesn’t despise the poor.”

  “It only proves that nature behaves as basely toward the poor as men do,” said Karamallah. “But these frivolous ideas won’t interest our eminent guest in the least.”

  It would be an understatement to say that Karamallah was overjoyed with this meeting he had arranged in the hope of learning something new about ignominy in all its glory. He was choking with admiration for the inventive cynicism of the man with his persecuted apartment building. The stroke of inspiration — a selective earthquake that had targeted his building! — deserved to be noted as crucial progress in the long history of human abjection. Karamallah only feared not being able to control his sarcastic remarks, thereby irritating Suleyman, who would then put an end to this feast for the mind.

  As always when he appealed to his honor, Suleyman thought he had fooled Karamallah and his friends, and he looked at them with the smugness of someone proven innocent by foreign experts. Was it scorn or his complete ignorance of people’s ability to see through his lies that guaranteed his perfect serenity? No one had mentioned the letter, and he did not understand the silence that surrounded the subject as if it were some shady business. He didn’t know that Ossama — following the instructions of the master — was to broach the matter as late as possible so as to make the pleasure last. The young man was feeling a pressing need to get the conversation going again when Suleyman beat him to it, suddenly having decided it was time to deal with this scandalous missive, the work of a notorious imbecile, by speaking directly to Ossama, the presumed keeper of the thing.

  “Must I remind you that I am here to discuss a certain affair? I am ready to accept any proposal from you to get back this letter.”

  “What proposal?” asked Ossama. “I have nothing to propose to you.”

  “I’m afraid you’re missing the point. I repea
t: I am ready to pay any reasonable amount. You need only name your sum. Don’t be intimidated. I am very understanding.”

  “How can you think our young friend would stoop so low as to accept money from you!” said Karamallah indignantly. “You may be forgiven, for you know nothing of his origins. Ossama is a prince; he was raised in silk and fed on honey. But he is too modest to call attention to his title. He prefers to be a simple citizen.”

  “I beg your pardon,” murmured Suleyman, deeply affected by his blunder, “I could not have guessed.”

  “His father, Prince Moshen, was forced into exile after the revolution,” continued Karamallah, who seemed infinitely amused by Ossama’s new biography. The story became heartrending, however, when one learned of the prince’s suicide. Incapable of living far from his country, he had killed himself.

  A victim of his own mythomania, Suleyman was prepared to believe anything. He therefore spoke to Ossama with all the deference due to a descendant of a royal family, albeit a fallen one.

  “But if this isn’t about money, I’d like to know what it is about.”

  “Why, nothing at all,” replied Ossama, who, crowned a prince with Karamallah’s blessing, was trying to live up to his new role. “To tell the truth, as an architecture student I mostly wanted the chance to talk to a famous developer, whose marvelous buildings are the glory of our nation, about a very modern problem that is dividing the university. Should we construct apartment buildings that will last an indefinite amount of time or, rather, ones that will last only a few years? And how many years? It’s a disconcerting question, isn’t it? Ten, twenty years? No one can agree on this point. I had hoped that, with your experience, you could clarify this and perhaps give me some advice with which I can impress my fellow students.”

  “We are not in the time of the Pharaohs,” said Suleyman, flattered to be acknowledged as an architecture expert. “My opinion, if you’re interested, is that one must construct buildings that last for a limited amount of time; otherwise it would be a disaster and the end of real estate.”

  “And why is that?” asked Ossama with great interest, pricking up his ears as if to glean every word from this lecture.

  “There’s nothing more logical. If you erect buildings that are to last eternally, sooner or later there will be no land on which to build others. Look at the pyramids. No one in this country would think of building pyramids — they’ve stood their ground for four thousand years — and yet they are being built abroad. They’re the height of fashion in modern architecture!”

  It was not only self-satisfaction, but all the pride of a hardened criminal that animated Suleyman after this lesson in modernity he’d passionately put forward for a future architect. He was beginning to feel at ease despite the obscurity that continued to surround the fate of his letter. Prince or not, he found Ossama charming enough to be the son he could not have. This led him to think of his family, of his wife who had become as fat as an opera singer from eating sweets, and of his daughter Anissa who called him a thief and who refused to accept his money on the pretext that he took it from the pockets of the poor. Exactly where did she expect him to get it? She said she was studying law in order to take people like him to court and send them to prison. All those years spent amassing a fortune by skimping on concrete only to hear such nonsense from the mouth of his sole heir — it was enough to mortify even an assassin. But this short visit to his family that he made in his imagination left no trace of bitterness in him; the words of a woman will remain empty of meaning for all eternity. He returned to his initial motive for appearing at this café, and this time he tried a new approach — one that pleased his vanity. He had come to believe that the slowness and ambiguities guiding this meeting had nothing malevolent about them, but that they simply corresponded to his companions’ ardent desire to prolong the discussion for the sheer pleasure of hearing him speak — a pleasure he shared. Without a moment’s hesitation he continued his account of the advantages of ephemeral constructions, demonstrating thereby that he had nothing against an educational conversation.

  “As I was saying, some buildings must disappear in order to leave room for new ones.”

  “Disappear how? With their occupants?” asked Karamallah perfidiously.

  “Of course not. We are not brutes.”

  “Can His Excellency tell me, then, how he makes provisions for this disappearance?”

  “It’s a matter of proportion. One needs to calculate the minimum depth of the foundations and the thickness of the walls, and to be especially careful not to squander concrete as if it were nothing but watermelon seeds.”

  “You are an extraordinary man,” said Karamallah. “How could I have lived until now without knowing you? Well, that gap in my life has just been filled.”

  “I am but a simple servant of the nation.”

  “The nation will be grateful to you,” Karamallah predicted. “That is, if the earthquakes can prove their efficacy far from your buildings.”

  “That is my daily prayer,” declared Suleyman.

  All around them the discussions grew louder and the general euphoria increased as the night progressed and the air filled with the fragrant smoke of hashish and tobacco wafting from the hookahs. Ossama had neither Karamallah’s rigor nor his self-control and it was difficult for him to contain his delight. He had the impression, as in a frightening dream, that he would not be able to stifle a burst of laughter much longer. He was responsible for a mission that was to end in a blazing grand finale for the man of precarious buildings, and it behooved him to maintain an attitude in keeping with his role as a student with newly attributed princely obligations. Until the moment he was to reveal to Suleyman the fate that had befallen his letter, he was forbidden to give himself over to the joys of irony. His impassioned youth was urging him not to delay the moment any longer; he wondered if Karamallah had learned enough from this dignitary of a villainous order, or if he wanted to feast on all the colors of infamy.

  Suleyman noticed Ossama’s weariness and his desire to get on with it, so he spoke directly to the young man.

  “So then, Prince, shall we discuss the letter?” he said in a friendly but determined tone of voice. “I assume you have it on you.”

  “Indeed, yes,” answered Ossama, “one could say I have it on me. And in a way that you will never guess.”

  “Well, show it to me,” said Suleyman somewhat nervously. He seemed to realize that something out of the ordinary was being plotted against him and that this thing was about to destroy forever his serenity as an untouchable citizen.

  “It’s not that simple,” said Ossama evasively, as if he were speaking to a child pestering him with questions. “What’s the hurry? Aren’t you enjoying our company?”

  Suleyman made an effort to control himself and seemed to reflect. The conversation with the prince had become more and more opaque, and he felt his mental abilities faltering in the face of so many evasions and recurring enigmas.

  “We must agree on something in the end. I’m not going to stay here all night, despite the pleasure I find in your company. I am a businessman and my time is precious. Kindly tell me what it is you require to return the letter to me.”

  “I’ve already told you; I don’t want a thing. I have this letter on me and it will never leave me. It is my amulet. Since I found it, I no longer fear anything. I’ll let you be the judge: the very day I picked it up on the sidewalk, a taxi that was driving by as usual with the hope of doing away with a few pedestrians almost mowed me down. I realized then that I had been saved from a horrible death by the magic radiating from this letter.”

  “The nerve! I forbid you to fool around with my letter!”

  Ossama opened his shirt and exhibited a leather case hanging around his neck on a thin silver chain.

  “Your letter is here. I’m still too young for my honor to be credible. So I
am counting on you and your honor, which has been legitimated and recognized by all the authorities, to serve as my alibi should anything go wrong.”

  Suleyman was overcome with anger; his face became swollen and took on a greenish cast. He looked like a balloon inflated with the breath of hell. He leaned over the table and, in a voice that threatened Ossama and, beyond him, all the rebels of the planet, said:

  “Tell me, Prince. Are you not a thief?”

  Ossama stood up, bowed ceremoniously, and answered in a humble voice filled with contrition:

  “A very small thief compared to you, Excellency!”

  Nimr burst out laughing, and his laughter was like no other — a revolutionary laughter, the laughter of someone who has just discovered the ignoble and grotesque face of the powerful of this world.

  Copyright © 2000 by Albert Cossery

  Translation copyright © 2011 by Alyson Waters

  Originally published by Editions Gallimard / Editions Joelle Losfeld, Paris, France, in 1999, as Les couleurs de l’infamie. Published by arrangement with Editions Gallimard, Editions Joelle Losfeld, Agence Hoffman, Paris, and The Colchie Agency.

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

  New Directions gratefully acknowledges the support of a Hemingway Grant and a CNL Award. • Cet ouvrage, publié dans le cadre d’un programme d’aide à la publication, bénéficie du soutien du Ministère des Affaires étrangères et du Service Culturel de l’Ambassade de France aux États-Unis. • This work, published as part of a program of aid for production, received support from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States.